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by graemep 776 days ago
That is not true.

The leaders of both the Brexit campaigns (Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage) both clearly said that they wanted more non EU (so mostly non-white) immigration - provided it was skilled people. Government policy since Brexit has made non-EU immigration easier.

Remainers wanted less non-EU immgration and more EU immigration.

So somehow the people who wanted less white immigration and more non-white immigration are the racists?

This is one reason a lot of us Brown people voted for Brexit. not my main reason, which was mostly opposition to further integration (the commitment to "ever closer integration") and some aspects of EU decision making, legislation and regulation.

3 comments

I don't remember seeing any emphasis on immigration from the remainers. The remainers simply wanted to stay part of the EU for the economic and travel benefits. The Brexit campaign made immigration a focus point, and of course both Johnson and Farage had to provide some reasoning about replacing EU immigration. Once out of the EU, the only other immigration to replace it with was non-EU. So their argument was: we don't want to be in the EU, we still need immigration, so we'll replace it with skilled non-EU immigration.

Basically the UK replaced the culturally and economically close immigration from EU with culturally and economically far immigration from other countries, while also kneekapping itself economically...

And finally: "This is one reason a lot of us Brown people voted for Brexit. not my main reason, which was mostly opposition to further integration (the commitment to "ever closer integration") and some aspects of EU decision making, legislation and regulation."

Perhaps. Or perhaps it is the very common pattern of immigrants voting against further immigrants coming in. Notably, a very significant LatAm immigrant continent in the US are staunch Republican voters against immigration. Sure, they might come up with a variety of excuses why they are voting against their fellow countrymen being able to immigrate like they did, but ultimately it's quite clearly an attempt to burn the bridge behind them to close off further competiton for their own jobs.

> Basically the UK replaced the culturally and economically close immigration from EU with culturally and economically far immigration from other countries

Really culturally closer? What about former colonies with substantial English speaking populations and a a strong British influence on their culture. My South Asian ancestors all speak English as a first language, and had an education heavy in British culture, grew up with a common law based legal system, etc. Far easier to integrate (socially or into work) than people from most of Europe (Ireland being the main exception).

> they might come up with a variety of excuses why they are voting against their fellow countrymen being able to immigrate like they did, but ultimately it's quite clearly an attempt to burn the bridge behind them to close off further competiton for their own jobs

We are voted for more of our (or our ancestors) fellow countrymen to be allowed to immigrate. This is the exact opposite of your LatAm anti-immigration Republicans.

I can promise you that if you anonymously asked the majority of the rural Brexit voters (rural areas being where the majority of Brexit votes came from), they'll all say that they are culturally closer to white Europeans than to dark skinned non-Europeans.

The UK shares much more and much longer of it's history with Europe than with it's former colonies. We are talking about thousands of years going back to Roman times, instead the less than hundred that the general British colonial rule lasted. The Royal family has Danish and German blood.

Does this mean anything? Not really. It's all semantics.

The actual outcome is very simple: the UK demolished it's ties with it's closest neighbours and biggest single economic block, for some questionable ties with very far away countries. In doing so, it now has very little negotiating power on it's own and has to build many relationships from scratch, from a very weak starting position.

The financial situation of much of the population is dire. The only real reason why one would want to immigrate to the UK is the financial sector, which is still hanging on. If you voted for Brexit, I'd like to say "good luck, I hope you like the taste of the meal you cooked".

It's normal for racists to create excuses for why they are not racist, and more generally, fascists to create excuses for wby they are not fascist. You have to learn to see through it.

Like, in the USA, they always complain about illegal immigration but say legal immigration is perfectly okay. If that were actually the case, they'd want an easy streamlined legal process. But they don't, because the point of the legal process being difficult is to keep certain types of people out. They're actually not okay with the kinds of certain kinds of people which mostly correlate to the ones who can't get through the legal process, and use "they're just too lazy to follow the process and if they followed the process I'd be fine with them" as a memetic shield against criticism.

The first point is true, but

> Remainers wanted less non-EU immgration and more EU immigration.

This is not true. I don't think there's a consensus on what 'remainers' wanted to do with non-EU immigration.

Given 1) the remainers in both the major parties wanted the keep the status quo, and 2) no prominent remainer politician or any significant remain campaign called for easier non-EU immigration I think it is reasonable to conclude that remainers in general (not all) were opposed to more non-EU immigration, and the policies they favoured lead to (and the actual effect of Brexit was) more non-white immigration and less white immigration.
You keep pushing this strawman. Just because someone wasn't for something, it doesn't mean they were against it. Immigration was simply not an issue on the Remainers' minds. Immigration was the main Brexiter point.
> Immigration was the main Brexiter point.~

Evidence?

> Immigration was simply not an issue on the Remainers' minds.

Which implies being happy with the status quo.

EU regulation and UK border control by far and away were the two leading pre 2016 Brexit vote talking points, both up front on stump and in the social churn as dog whistles.

University of Oxford:

    Migration was a defining issue in the UK’s June 2016 referendum on EU membership. This page brings together resources and analysis informing the exit process and our previous analysis of the referendum.
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/projects/migration-and...

That was then, this is now: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/23/world/europe/uk-brexit-mi...

Your first point was addressed by my sibling comment.

> Which implies being happy with the status quo.

At this point it feels like you are trolling. By your logic, I hope you are out in Angola distributing food, because otherwise you are obviously happy about people dying of starvation. See what I did there?

Brexit built it's entire campaign on "taking back control of the borders and restricting immigration". For Remain, the issue with Brexit was losing access to the EU single market and Schengen free movement zone, which were the focal points of their campaign. None of the sides campaigned against hunger in Angola, therefore by your logic everyone in the UK - including you - is positively happy about the status quo of Angolans starving?